Rock De Lux, April 1995
By David S. Mordoh
Contributed by Sai
Translated by Ana
Some dizzying vocal registers, an innate and extreme expressiveness with the chords and a classical and at the same time in force repertoire, make the name Buckley a new point of reference when we speak of contemporary singer-songwriters. Verb, voice and melody conjugated with emotive dexterity.
Jeff Buckley appears on stage wearing a Jeff Buckley black shirt. We are in Montpellier, in a small venue called Victoire 2 and although the opening group, Bettie Serveert, didn't appear, there is a palpable expectation. We all know what we have come to, why we are here. There is not always a first album with the qualities of Grace (CBS, 94), able to take your ass off the couch and make you undertake a pilgrimage of many kilometers to confirm forecasts.
For the last semester, I hardly think of another album, it has me trapped. Not a song or two, the first or the last. It is the global concept, his way of understanding music and the feelings that it should promote. You put Jeff Buckley behind an orchestra and he gives you goosebumps. You put him with a classic rock quartet, the same. You leave him alone with his guitar, with any guitar, the same. Ergo: Jeff Buckley gives you goosebumps. There is something in his music that exceeds the sense of hearing and affects the remaining four, maybe even the sixth. Often, just thinking about the record, I'm afraid of what it can do to me, where I can be driven by its monstruous beauty. I perceive the danger of letting it seduce you into unexplored paths, in which you are only the smoking paper thrown into the center of the hurricane. And suddenly, that paper that has traveled at very high speeds, which could have disintegrated in the first instant, rests in the sun on the most beautiful lotus flower in the Pond of Eden, safe from all earthly squabbles. From hell to heaven, from shadow to light, this is how Jeff Buckley works.
"Mick on bass, Mike on guitar, Matt on drums ... And Jeff Buckley on tshirt". Despite the excellent work with the guitar-we'll talk about his voice-, he will try to breathe a little wink of humor at the normal boring presentation of the musicians. A group of friends, austere but sufficient, who knows the songs by heart - a repertoire that is still short - and has been suddenly transferred from the New York clubs to the European venues, thanks to the lavish welcome of Grace -record of the year for the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles- in neighboring countries. After a few minutes gripped, they are released as their leader gains confidence. He must learn to live with success and he does not appear in disgust. He wants to be famous. Because of his talent, there is little room for doubt: he will be famous.
Jeff Buckley's secret weapon is his way of singing. Helped by very versatile vocal cords, he covers with relative effort, or at least it seems to him a natural exercise, a very wide range of registers, spectacular especially when he tends to highs. But he is not satisfied with reaching the top, he can descend suddenly to the lowest thing with only changing of syllable, obtaining an effect of roller coaster, of vertigo. Like someone who shows his balance by walking on the railing of the attic of a six-story building, like a netless trapeze artist. He holds this game the minutes he likes and the songs flow as if they were composing while he plays them. And his texts set in appropriate melodies, the conjunction between verbal message and musical harmony, that everything so own and unique, make him a kind of total poet of our time.
His immediate obsession: to get rid of his name's weight. Jeff Buckley is the son of singer-songwriter Tim Buckley, a folk renovator of the late 60s. His son in quotes, since his father left the nest when Jeff was six months old. They spent a week together after eight years, but that happened two months before Tim's death. Maybe now is not the time to review Papa Buckley's biography and his artistic peculiarities. Interestingly, however, he also has versatile vocal cords with his wide range of records, he is also spectacular, he also makes the roller coaster, etc. Both voices are not the same and have very specific parallels, although in the end, in their essence, they claim similar emotions. Tim had to live another era, in which surely the horizons were not yet defined. He created a school so personal that it was unique. He grafted into his initial folk elements other music from the avant-garde sectors -the ability of rhythmic mutation of jazz, etc-, in which he moved. Today, as much as Jeff Buckley disagrees, this predisposition to the unclassifiable is also perceived as the inheritance of his father.
There was a key moment in his French performance, when he was left alone to perform, voice and guitar without further ado, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. The rows behind, next to the bar, seemed more interested in making their conversations heard than in tasting the musical menu of the day. Jeff attacks the first notes undisturbed. Arpegia and sings as the angels usually do when they have access to see what happens below: with closed eyes. At half song he has managed to silence the last asshole, the entire audience attentive and amazed. Shoot the sensitive with minimal ammunition obtaining maximum effectiveness. The applause, needless to say, thunderous.
Probably his sensibility was built on the peculiar circumstances that surrounded his childhood and adolescence. Son of a mother pianist of Panamanian roots and a famous father who leaves the home, the stepfather who enters their lives, continuous changes of residence: that same instability sometimes causes a greater artistic sense, developed in both California and New York, in whose cafes, not many months ago, was still rehearsing his compositions. In one of them, incidentally, he recorded four pieces for the Big Cat label, which became his record debut, Live at Sin-e, a mini LP published in the spring of 1994 with two cover versions -The Way Young Lovers Do, by Van Morrison, and Je n'en connais pas la fin-, and two songs of their own, Mojo Pin and Eternal Life, present four months later in Grace. Just him, with only voice and electric guitar, he fills everything. Neither Van, nor Piaf, nor band behind ... As the best of the troubadours.
The first two samples of Grace, in addition to the virtues present in the rest of the album, have the collaboration of the excellent guitarist Gary Lucas. His special sound brilliance immediately gives wings to the disc. Absent him live, Mojo Pin maintains the atmosphere, while Grace, the song, hits hard without studio orchestration. Last Goodbye was in charge of opening the night. And Lilac Wine became, as in the album, in one of the stellar moments: a composition forgotten since 1978, when Elkie Brooks had less success with it, Jeff transforms it into a devastating piece of solitude. Live, he makes the first less intimate section, switching to a vocal technique close to flamenco, to then let the chorus fall even more slowly and sweetly, the guitar brushes barely combing that sentimental crash, with his mouth stuck to the microphone as if it was a life saver.
The only cut off Grace that Jeff Buckley did not interpret is the Corpus Christi Carol of Benjamin Britten, I suppose that by the difficulty of reproducing such a delicate vocalization live. Of the rest, So Real and Lover You Should have Come Over are offered without big differences, while the metallic fierceness of Eternal Life wins with the decibels. And left for the last Dream Brother because it is the last of the album, not the show, surely, although he denies it, a composition inspired by the almost null relationship with his father, where the surrounding of the oriental beginning and the guitar lead to a explosive point. Having Jeff Buckley in front of me, in the climax, seeing his face, the expression, that anguished scream trying to communicate who knows how many miseries, pains and frustrations, left me with an internal chill that would last for days.
After playing Kangaroo, from Big Star, (available on Grace's single CD, the insatiable can also turn to The Jazz Passengers' album "In Love" (94), produced by Hal Willner, Jeff sings the Jelly Street theme), together with the band, in the encores, Jeff has changed his clothes. He wears his typical white V-neck T-shirt, and is left alone again. A spider web of guitar notes flows into the spasmodic chords -imagine the best Ed Kuepper solo- of the final section of Live at Sin-e. Now the words and the vocal twists are different, but also familiar ... Wait ..."And I will never grow so old again, and I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain"...It's Sweet Thing, by Van Morrison. Jeff has no problem in re-engaging, after a few minutes, to the presumable "The way young Lovers Do". He does it instinctively, diving in the music, swimming in its waters, recreating himself during the time that his inspiration endures, releasing himself, expressing what nobody would know how to express better. A moving and innovative exercise, classic and in force at the same time, approachable, compatible.
While the procession parades towards the exit, I stop at the bar in search of the last beer. I still have one hundred francs. And I see there the black shirt hanging, lurking (for eighty francs, everything is said). Even against the rock fetishes, my motivation for this artist makes me assume that I will wear it proudly this summer.
By David S. Mordoh
Contributed by Sai
Translated by Ana
Some dizzying vocal registers, an innate and extreme expressiveness with the chords and a classical and at the same time in force repertoire, make the name Buckley a new point of reference when we speak of contemporary singer-songwriters. Verb, voice and melody conjugated with emotive dexterity.
Jeff Buckley appears on stage wearing a Jeff Buckley black shirt. We are in Montpellier, in a small venue called Victoire 2 and although the opening group, Bettie Serveert, didn't appear, there is a palpable expectation. We all know what we have come to, why we are here. There is not always a first album with the qualities of Grace (CBS, 94), able to take your ass off the couch and make you undertake a pilgrimage of many kilometers to confirm forecasts.
For the last semester, I hardly think of another album, it has me trapped. Not a song or two, the first or the last. It is the global concept, his way of understanding music and the feelings that it should promote. You put Jeff Buckley behind an orchestra and he gives you goosebumps. You put him with a classic rock quartet, the same. You leave him alone with his guitar, with any guitar, the same. Ergo: Jeff Buckley gives you goosebumps. There is something in his music that exceeds the sense of hearing and affects the remaining four, maybe even the sixth. Often, just thinking about the record, I'm afraid of what it can do to me, where I can be driven by its monstruous beauty. I perceive the danger of letting it seduce you into unexplored paths, in which you are only the smoking paper thrown into the center of the hurricane. And suddenly, that paper that has traveled at very high speeds, which could have disintegrated in the first instant, rests in the sun on the most beautiful lotus flower in the Pond of Eden, safe from all earthly squabbles. From hell to heaven, from shadow to light, this is how Jeff Buckley works.
"Mick on bass, Mike on guitar, Matt on drums ... And Jeff Buckley on tshirt". Despite the excellent work with the guitar-we'll talk about his voice-, he will try to breathe a little wink of humor at the normal boring presentation of the musicians. A group of friends, austere but sufficient, who knows the songs by heart - a repertoire that is still short - and has been suddenly transferred from the New York clubs to the European venues, thanks to the lavish welcome of Grace -record of the year for the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles- in neighboring countries. After a few minutes gripped, they are released as their leader gains confidence. He must learn to live with success and he does not appear in disgust. He wants to be famous. Because of his talent, there is little room for doubt: he will be famous.
Jeff Buckley's secret weapon is his way of singing. Helped by very versatile vocal cords, he covers with relative effort, or at least it seems to him a natural exercise, a very wide range of registers, spectacular especially when he tends to highs. But he is not satisfied with reaching the top, he can descend suddenly to the lowest thing with only changing of syllable, obtaining an effect of roller coaster, of vertigo. Like someone who shows his balance by walking on the railing of the attic of a six-story building, like a netless trapeze artist. He holds this game the minutes he likes and the songs flow as if they were composing while he plays them. And his texts set in appropriate melodies, the conjunction between verbal message and musical harmony, that everything so own and unique, make him a kind of total poet of our time.
His immediate obsession: to get rid of his name's weight. Jeff Buckley is the son of singer-songwriter Tim Buckley, a folk renovator of the late 60s. His son in quotes, since his father left the nest when Jeff was six months old. They spent a week together after eight years, but that happened two months before Tim's death. Maybe now is not the time to review Papa Buckley's biography and his artistic peculiarities. Interestingly, however, he also has versatile vocal cords with his wide range of records, he is also spectacular, he also makes the roller coaster, etc. Both voices are not the same and have very specific parallels, although in the end, in their essence, they claim similar emotions. Tim had to live another era, in which surely the horizons were not yet defined. He created a school so personal that it was unique. He grafted into his initial folk elements other music from the avant-garde sectors -the ability of rhythmic mutation of jazz, etc-, in which he moved. Today, as much as Jeff Buckley disagrees, this predisposition to the unclassifiable is also perceived as the inheritance of his father.
There was a key moment in his French performance, when he was left alone to perform, voice and guitar without further ado, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. The rows behind, next to the bar, seemed more interested in making their conversations heard than in tasting the musical menu of the day. Jeff attacks the first notes undisturbed. Arpegia and sings as the angels usually do when they have access to see what happens below: with closed eyes. At half song he has managed to silence the last asshole, the entire audience attentive and amazed. Shoot the sensitive with minimal ammunition obtaining maximum effectiveness. The applause, needless to say, thunderous.
Probably his sensibility was built on the peculiar circumstances that surrounded his childhood and adolescence. Son of a mother pianist of Panamanian roots and a famous father who leaves the home, the stepfather who enters their lives, continuous changes of residence: that same instability sometimes causes a greater artistic sense, developed in both California and New York, in whose cafes, not many months ago, was still rehearsing his compositions. In one of them, incidentally, he recorded four pieces for the Big Cat label, which became his record debut, Live at Sin-e, a mini LP published in the spring of 1994 with two cover versions -The Way Young Lovers Do, by Van Morrison, and Je n'en connais pas la fin-, and two songs of their own, Mojo Pin and Eternal Life, present four months later in Grace. Just him, with only voice and electric guitar, he fills everything. Neither Van, nor Piaf, nor band behind ... As the best of the troubadours.
The first two samples of Grace, in addition to the virtues present in the rest of the album, have the collaboration of the excellent guitarist Gary Lucas. His special sound brilliance immediately gives wings to the disc. Absent him live, Mojo Pin maintains the atmosphere, while Grace, the song, hits hard without studio orchestration. Last Goodbye was in charge of opening the night. And Lilac Wine became, as in the album, in one of the stellar moments: a composition forgotten since 1978, when Elkie Brooks had less success with it, Jeff transforms it into a devastating piece of solitude. Live, he makes the first less intimate section, switching to a vocal technique close to flamenco, to then let the chorus fall even more slowly and sweetly, the guitar brushes barely combing that sentimental crash, with his mouth stuck to the microphone as if it was a life saver.
The only cut off Grace that Jeff Buckley did not interpret is the Corpus Christi Carol of Benjamin Britten, I suppose that by the difficulty of reproducing such a delicate vocalization live. Of the rest, So Real and Lover You Should have Come Over are offered without big differences, while the metallic fierceness of Eternal Life wins with the decibels. And left for the last Dream Brother because it is the last of the album, not the show, surely, although he denies it, a composition inspired by the almost null relationship with his father, where the surrounding of the oriental beginning and the guitar lead to a explosive point. Having Jeff Buckley in front of me, in the climax, seeing his face, the expression, that anguished scream trying to communicate who knows how many miseries, pains and frustrations, left me with an internal chill that would last for days.
After playing Kangaroo, from Big Star, (available on Grace's single CD, the insatiable can also turn to The Jazz Passengers' album "In Love" (94), produced by Hal Willner, Jeff sings the Jelly Street theme), together with the band, in the encores, Jeff has changed his clothes. He wears his typical white V-neck T-shirt, and is left alone again. A spider web of guitar notes flows into the spasmodic chords -imagine the best Ed Kuepper solo- of the final section of Live at Sin-e. Now the words and the vocal twists are different, but also familiar ... Wait ..."And I will never grow so old again, and I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain"...It's Sweet Thing, by Van Morrison. Jeff has no problem in re-engaging, after a few minutes, to the presumable "The way young Lovers Do". He does it instinctively, diving in the music, swimming in its waters, recreating himself during the time that his inspiration endures, releasing himself, expressing what nobody would know how to express better. A moving and innovative exercise, classic and in force at the same time, approachable, compatible.
While the procession parades towards the exit, I stop at the bar in search of the last beer. I still have one hundred francs. And I see there the black shirt hanging, lurking (for eighty francs, everything is said). Even against the rock fetishes, my motivation for this artist makes me assume that I will wear it proudly this summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment